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Best Dressed: Fashion from the Birth of Couture to Today

The streamlined silhouette of the 1930s mirrored the aesthetics of the Machine Age, and the words used to describe its art and architecture--precision, simplicity, and smoothness--can also be applied to the period's fashions. Precision cutting and seaming, economy of line, and the use of shimmering satins and velvets were hallmarks of its dress design, which helped to transform the body into a simple classical column, a reflection of the Platonic ideal that formed the basis of its design philosophy. This shell pink evening gown was designed by Augustabernard, who dressed chic Paris during the late 1920s and early 1930s and also found enthusiastic clients among New York's custom dressmakers and import houses, among them Henri Bendel, Bergdorf Goodman, and Thurn, from whom it was purchased. Like many Augustabernard designs, the gown glides over the body and is unadorned except for its deeply cut back of rich magenta velvet, which ties into a bow over flowing panels of satin held in place with shirring, a characteristic Augustabernard detail. The gown was captured for Vogue in 1933 by the noted photographer George Hoyningen-Huene. Dilys E. Blum and H. Kristina Haugland, from Best Dressed: Fashion from the Birth of Couture to Today (1997) pp. 36-37.